President Donald Trump is hoping to slash more than 97% of the United States Agency for International Development's workforce, according to reports shared by multiple news outlets.
No cuts have been made to the aid agency as of this writing. However, the New York Times reports that the Trump administration hopes to keep just 290 or so of the agency's staffers after downsizing. USAID currently employs more than 10,000 workers coordinating U.S. global aid efforts.
USAID Assistant Administrator Atul Gawande shared an email that appeared to be from acting USAID Deputy Chief of Staff Joel Borkert on social media. A chart within the email seemed to corroborate the Times’ claims of massive staffing cuts.
Rubio claims that @USAID lifesaving assistance for health and humanitarian needs will continue. But his team just communicated that the entire agency will be imminently reduced from 14,000 to 294 people. Just 12 in Africa. pic.twitter.com/8uvyjcXKeA
— Atul Gawande (@Atul_Gawande) February 6, 2025
Gawande slammed potential mass layoffs in a series of social media posts, saying that the Trump admin's "utter indifference" to the consequences of their actions is "evil."
“These people worked selflessly for their country in some of Earth's most impoverished or dangerous places under GOP and Dems alike,” he wrote. “The utter indifference to loss of life, our people abroad, America's standing, and American security, caused by unchecked, reckless power, is evil.”
Trump officials have launched multiple assaults on the agency behind crucial and popular global civilian aid initiatives in the opening days of the new administration.
Late last month, the State Department froze most international aid funding indefinitely, as billionaire and Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk claimed the department needed to be shut down.
In an interview with Fox News, Secretary of State Marco Rubio alleged that employees at USAID were “completely uncooperative” with the administration’s planned changes to the agency.
“The goal was to reform it, but now we have rank insubordination,” Rubio said on Monday. “We had no choice but to take dramatic steps to bring this thing under control.”
On Thursday evening, the American Federation of Government Employees and American Foreign Service Association sued to stop the USAID cuts, calling actions to “systematically dismantle” the agency “unconstitutional and illegal.”
“They have cost thousands of American jobs. And they have imperiled U.S. national security interests,” the complaint alleges. “Not a single one of defendants’ actions to dismantle USAID were taken pursuant to congressional authorization.”
